A Coup by Any Other Name

July 4 (Bloomberg) -- The ouster of Egyptian President
Mohamed Mursi by the military is the fate the Muslim Brotherhood
always dreaded.

The Brothers (the Ikhwan in Arabic) knew the constellation
of forces in their country. From the inception of their movement
in the late 1920s, their leaders have had their gaze fixed on
the army. Alternately, the officer corps was seen as redeemers
of the Brotherhood’s vision, or as the only credible threat to
their power.

In the indoctrination work of the Brotherhood, military
officers were the targets of choice. When the armed forces
toppled the monarchy in 1952, the Brothers thought their own
rule had dawned. They dubbed the coup a “blessed movement,” and
saw the young officers who pulled it off as the culmination of
their political work.

That happy illusion would be shattered before long. The
army and its strongman Gamal Abdel Nasser were bent on
monopolizing power. “Religion is for God and the nation is for
all,” became the motto of the new military rulers. A clash came
in 1954, and the Brotherhood was crushed. In the years to come,
it was proscribed, driven underground. Many of its militants
were sent to the gallows, and thousands were dispatched to
prison, Mursi himself being taken into “protective custody.” His
presidency abolished by a decree read by the commander of the
armed forces is thus history repeating itself.

Military Commander

More poignant is that it was Mursi himself who had
promoted the new commander, Abdelfatah al-Seesi, chose him over
more senior colleagues, after sacking Field Marshal Mohamed
Hussein Tantawi. At the time, there was endless speculation that
the new head of the military was a Brotherhood sympathizer sure
to accept the primacy of the presidency and the political rules
set by the Brotherhood.

What the Egyptians called Ikhwanization was contested by a
broad coalition of secular liberals, remnants of the old regime
with a base in the judiciary and the Interior Ministry, but the
Brotherhood had the upper hand. Its adherents, grant them their
due, had prevailed in parliamentary elections, and in the
presidential contest.

A constitution they had rushed through a stacked assembly
was overwhelmingly approved by 64 percent of the voters last
December. The sophisticated salons in Cairo may have scoffed at
Mursi. The uninspiring president may not have moved trendy young
men and women eager to partake of a modern life, but there was a
big country out there, in the villages of Upper Egypt and in
urban alleyways who saw themselves in this son of peasantry
preaching faith and rectitude.

The Brotherhood had not been brilliant at ruling. It had a
bad year: The economy was in a spiral, and the streets had grown
lawless.

But Mursi and the Brotherhood could point to three decades
of decline and police rule under Hosni Mubarak. Mursi gave it
his best in the final days of his stewardship. He owned up to
big mistakes he had made; he singled out the disastrous
constitutional declaration he had issued last November that put
his decisions beyond judicial review.

A country ruled by infallible pharaohs heard him proclaim
that errors are human, but their correction is a duty. It was to
no avail. The armed forces had had enough of the tumult in the
streets. Mursi could only watch his handpicked military
commander announce the end of the reign of the Brotherhood.

General Seesi had come prepared. He read his declaration in
the presence of the Coptic pope, and of the highest religious
functionary of the Islamic establishment, the grand sheikh of
al-Azhar. This was orderly, quiescent religion, with the sheikh
conveying the essential message that the Brotherhood had no
monopoly on Islam. Seesi made sure that Mohamed ElBaradei, the
noted liberal figure and celebrity abroad, was there for the
event, as were representatives of the Tamarod (Rebel) movement,
the young activists who had issued the call to the general
strike of June 30.

Cheering Apaches

It was boilerplate, the declaration read by the general.
Egyptians and other Arabs know such texts by heart: the
abnegation by the officer corps, the indulgence they had given
incompetent civilian authorities, the promise that this was a
temporary measure. The spectacle of the crowds in Tahrir Square
cheering the Apache helicopters overhead was but a measure of
this rebellion’s incoherence. Military rule had been anathema to
the opponents of the Brotherhood, now it was their deliverance.

Egypt is a big recipient of U.S. aid. There has always been
facile talk of an “American raj” in Cairo. The Pentagon has
privileged ties to the Egyptian military. But this isn’t
America’s struggle. The U.S. ought to rein in the search for its
role in that upheaval.

No, President Barack Obama didn’t bring this rebellion
about, nor could American officials have ordered the Egyptian
military to hold back. We should be honest about what has come
to pass in Egypt. We may abhor the Brotherhood, but this is a
coup d’etat.

On the books, the U.S. has regulations that ban the
provision of aid to military regimes that overthrow elected
civilian governments. Obama acknowledged this in a statement he
made on the change in Cairo. Relevant departments and agencies
will be reviewing the “implications under U.S. law for our
assistance to the government of Egypt,” he said.

What we do will unfold under the watchful eyes of a
judgmental Arab and Muslim street. If we find a loophole around
the law, we should spare one and all any sanctimony about the
matter.

(Fouad Ajami, a Bloomberg View contributor, is a senior
fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the
author of “The Syrian Rebellion,” published by Hoover Press.)